


Sixteen Years

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, High School, Multi, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-05 17:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15175805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: Zaizen Aoi has never believed in nonsense like spirits and ghosts and gods. For as long as he can remember, Fujiki Yusaku has been able to see things that dwell on the border of one world and the next. Naturally, it's just their luck that their new school just happens to be haunted by two ghosts with a particular sort of interest in them.





	1. Aoi & Kiku

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though the two chapters together make two sides of one complete story, they're actually perfectly readable without each other, so feel free to read just one or the other!
> 
> Vrains Week day one: School and School Uniforms

Zaizen Aoi didn’t believe in ghosts. When humans themselves could put on two faces, when people schemed plenty from the shadows, ghosts, thought Aoi, couldn’t exist. And yet the thought of them hung constant over her head, muttered in various tones across the hall. Teasing, skeptical, hushed and fearful-  _ “You might see one of the ghosts.” _

Aoi knew the story. Everyone that passed through Den City High School’s gates heard it told over a dozen times- and heard at least three before they even set foot in the building for the first time. Ten years ago at the culture festival the drama club had put on a play. All of the students had gathered for a final rehearsal the morning of the festival. Not all of them had left.

_ That’s why they change the uniforms to black, _ whispered a gloomy-looking boy to Aoi’s left,  _ so the uniforms won’t show the blood if another  _ accident _ happens. _

Aoi scoffed. That wasn’t the reason at all- though it did, admittedly, have to do with the school’s public image. Instead of the traditional sailor uniforms and gakuran, they’d switched to black blazers- to promote unity between all the students in the wake of tragedy. That reason was put out in the open for anyone to find. And, thought Aoi a little cynically, also to make sure enrollment didn’t drop off quite so steeply the next year. 

Pranksters in bad taste roamed the halls, messing with people’s things and pretending to be ghosts, and the students- even the most sensible of them always a little paranoid with the way the stories spread one after another through the school even a decade later- were quick to jump to the paranormal when something went wrong.

So no, Zaizen Aoi didn’t believe in ghosts. Not one bit. There was no saint nor psychic nor seer who claimed to see the lines of her life that could convince her to put her faith in something so ridiculous.

And yet she was finding herself increasingly more convinced that she was being haunted. 

Notes. Short, sweet little things that she found in her desk, written out in bubbly, bright script, the equivalent of a smile from a person she couldn’t see. Every time she found one tucked into the pages of her textbook or left in the crevice of her desk on one of her sticky notes, Aoi glanced around the classroom, hoping to find someone that would break and spill the secret. But the person who had written them either wasn’t present or had a particularly good poker face, because never did anyone beside her seem to pay them the least mind.

At first, Aoi had dismissed them as the work of an admirer.  _ You’re looking very cute today, too, _ after all, was anything but subtle. But it had been with that note Aoi had realized they were written with her own pen. She’d left it inside her desk, inside her pencil case- she’d been sure of that. And yet there it was, placed neatly atop the note like a paperweight, half-obscuring the bubbly-  _ Do your best today, too! _

And that, Aoi thought, was strange but not unreasonable. She’d heard of far more bizzare things than using someone’s own paper and pen to write them a love note. She staked out her desk, once- standing out in the hallway, trying to act like she wasn’t peering through the cracked door. Going hungry and stalking her own desk during lunch wasn’t particularly  _ dignified, _ but no one asked questions, and no one approached her desk. But when the bell rang and she returned, there was the note, slid neatly beneath the cover of her math textbook.

Aoi took a deep breath, curling the edges of the paper around her fingers, tracing the curls of the characters with a nail. She’d get to the bottom of this, one way or another. 

 

But one way or another, Aoi thought, was quickly turning towards  _ another. _ No matter what she did, she never seemed to be able to quite find her mysterious admirer- or how they were sneaking notes into her things. One day, Aoi opened the flap of her bag only to find a note tucked into the top pocket- somewhere that no one could have touched without her knowing, because her bag had never left her side that day.

_ I hope you find this one! Good job today! See you tomorrow! _

“How?” Aoi said, turning the note over as if that would reveal how it had found its way into an impossible place. It did nothing, of course, and Aoi heaved out a long sigh before tacking the note up with a pin beside the rest, hanging from the board above her desk at home, kind little reminders she read over each morning. There were still a few avenues left for her to check.

(Or at least, a few became three became two became-)

There was still one thing Aoi could do, she thought, glancing into an empty classroom- or empty, save for the one boy sitting in the middle of it, unaware of her presence lurking in the door. She knew that boy, or at least she’d heard of him. Fujiki Yusaku, speaking to the open air like a fool that believed he could speak to ghosts. Aoi squinted at him- he didn’t particularly seem to have many friends. The students who had come from his middle school seemed to avoid him, spreading rumors about the occult and all the other nonsense Aoi refused to care about. There was a glimmer in the air before him- but it certainly wasn’t a ghost. Aoi knew that.

She turned away- she wouldn’t turn to such baseless rumors and ridiculous delusions yet. Not yet, thought Aoi, renewing her determination. 

But the notes kept coming. Kind things. Encouragements and compliments. Things that left Aoi, foolish as it might have been, waiting for the next one to appear. Then, finally, the turning point-

_ Have you ever considered going on stage? You have a lot of charisma in you. If you ever did, I promise I’d come and watch. _

Aoi stared down at that one for a long while, turning it over in her hands. This one was longer than a lot of the rest- and this one seemed different. Like an invitation, rather than a simple compliment.

The stage, the theatre, the accident- Aoi nodded. She had a plan now, and whoever thought they were being clever by setting all this up would have a confrontation on their hands.

“I accept,” she said, and didn’t feel foolish for issuing her declaration to the open air at all. If the culprit heard, then all the better. This was her chance, and she wasn’t going to waste it. 

 

No one was allowed into the old theatre. Due to its location near the center of the school building it was unable to be demolished, but the structure of it meant it couldn’t be repurposed without closing the school for an extended period of time. Either would be unacceptable to the administration, and so it remained, decaying and untouched.

Aoi pushed her way inside and thought that this place, dusty and forlorn, was the true ghost of the school. She felt foolish as she did, glancing over her shoulder and praying that no one would come by and inadvertently lock her in- surely it was that, not a faint sense of something hovering over her shoulder, because there were  _ no such things _ as ghosts. 

“I’m here,” Aoi said into the empty auditorium. No answer came. Instead there was only the soft click of Aoi’s shoes against the cement as she made her way down the balcony steps, searching for any sign of what those notes had wanted to convey to her. For any sign of their person who had written them- but there was, as always, nothing. She spent a while pacing the rows before deciding the whole affair was nothing but a massive waste of energy, and turned back towards the seats. There was a thick layer of dust over all of them; if anyone had ever sat there, then it certainly hadn’t been recently. 

Aoi frowned, searching instead for something or somewhere to sit that wasn’t the steps. Out of the the corner of her eye something fluttered; when she turned she caught sight of a newspaper page caught between the balcony railing and what must have been a lighting rig, now rusted and peeling, black paint pulling away orange from the silver poles below. Still, it was something to sit on. Aoi crossed the space in quick steps and pulled the paper carefully out, mindful of how yellowed it was. Trying to find the cleanest chair was an exercise in futility, at this point, so Aoi chose the nearest one that looked like it wasn’t going to collapse on her.

Aoi set down the scrap of newspaper and sat down atop it, wincing at the way dust still rose up in a cloud around her but thinking that this was better than nothing. And with a seat and a determination to wait this out as long as it took, Aoi settled down for whoever would come- an admirer or a prankster, Aoi didn’t care which. Not so long as she finally found her answer. 

But she wore her phone battery down to an inch of its life, and still no one came. Perhaps it hadn’t been literal, Aoi thought, or perhaps they really meant that they wanted her to get on stage and join the drama club. If  _ this _ was their recruitment policy, Aoi thought dryly, then it was no wonder they were always struggling for members. 

“This is pointless,” Aoi said, and summarily stood, pushing herself up from the chair with another  _ woosh _ of dust about her, forcing her to hold her breath and stand still a moment- and it was then that she glimpsed it.

All the dust on the seat beside her was gone. This wasn’t a prank, or a trick, or some sort of elaborate deception. The dust was gone. Aoi hadn’t touched it, and no one else could have, because no one else had so much as breathed in its general direction. 

But it couldn’t be a ghost. Aoi stood, staring down at the seat where someone had clearly been just beside her. It couldn’t, she thought, picking up her bag and turning on her heel to head for the exit. It couldn’t. 

(But, she thought, slipping out into the empty halls, into the fresh air blown by the open window across the hall, what else could it have been?)

 

There was only one thing left for Aoi to do, one avenue left before she forever tainted her browser history with nonsense that she was having to force herself more and more not to believe. Luckily, it didn’t seem like the final method was terribly opposed. 

“You can’t possibly see ghosts,” Aoi said, half-convinced that she was right and half-hoping she hadn’t just dragged a strange boy that talked to himself all the time into a deserted classroom after school. 

Yusaku gave her a terribly exasperated look. Quite bluntly he followed it up with- “Trust me. I wish I couldn’t.” 

Aoi frowned- what was  _ that _ supposed to mean, exactly- but before she could ask, Yusaku glanced over his shoulder with a frown.

“I didn’t ask you,” Yusaku said to thin air, and then turned back to Aoi. Clearly, she thought, he no longer cared how he came off around her. Then again, she’d just come up here to ask him about  _ ghosts _ with complete and utter seriousness. She didn’t have much left in the credibility department, either. 

“I need to know what’s been happening around me. So if there’s a way I can see ghosts, then I need to try it,” Aoi replied. Yusaku sighed.

“There’s one thing we could do. It’s a ritual. Usually harmless. Usually.”

Fantastically reassuring. Aoi had always been told never to go messing with the spirits; still, she had no other choice. She certainly wasn’t going to take the word of a stranger at face value and ask him to act as interpreter. If she was going to do this, then she was going to commit. 

“Then let’s do it,” Aoi said, and Yusaku sighed again, but seemed to decide relenting was the easiest course of action. He explained it to her quickly but thoroughly as she pulled her phone from her pocket and he closed the curtains. She moved to stand in the middle of the empty room and lifted her phone to eye level, switching on the camera and feeling a bit foolish- when he’d suggested a  _ ritual, _ she’d expected something a little more occultic. But if the real world had moved on, she supposed, why wouldn’t the spirit world have, too?  

The moment Aoi thought it she shook her head- none of that. She still didn’t believe in any of this. All of this now was just exhausting all her options, so she could go back to the pin-tack drawing board with a clean slate and a much-needed reminder that all this talk of ghosts was nothing but nonsense.

Aoi took a breath, and, thoughts clear, began to turn a small circle in place, slowly taking in each shadow of the classroom. She turned once, twice- for a moment Yusaku’s presence behind her was almost alarming, looking so pale in the dark of the curtained room- but he was as he had been, and so Aoi completed the final turn. With a brief sense of victory did Aoi lower her phone- and then did she see the girl, sitting with legs crossed neatly atop the desk nearest to her.

“Hello,” said the girl with a smile and a wave. Aoi almost crashed backwards over a chair, startled by her proximity. She hadn’t been there just a moment before, Aoi would have seen her. There was no way she wouldn’t have been caught in the camera’s lens. Which meant-

“You’re not doing this?” Aoi asked, turning to Yusaku, even though that alternative was just as ridiculous.

Yusaku shook his head; the girl on the desk shook her head and said with a smile- “Oh, he’s not doing anything. Though that was one of the better rituals that’s been performed in this school, so you should both be proud!”

Aoi didn’t quite know how to feel about that- still didn’t know how to feel about any of this- but at least it gave her time to collect herself again, standing up properly to act as if she hadn’t almost toppled over in surprise.

“My name is Kiku,” said the girl, hopping off the desk to stand next to Aoi. They were about the same height, but the way she floated on tiptoe made her just a touch taller. “And that over there is Takeru.”

Aoi turned her head towards where Kiku was pointing. Sure enough, there was some sort of indistinct blur floating beside Yusaku. She squinted at it, then blinked a few times, and slowly did the other figure come into focus. A boy in an old-style gakuran, partner to the girl in the sailor uniform- the old school uniforms, down to the button. Apparently recognizing she could see, the boy waved and flashed her a friendly smile. Aoi slowly, tentatively, returned it.

“Zaizen Aoi,” she returned, common courtesy taking over for lack of anything sensical to say. She was speaking to a ghost.  _ To a ghost. _

“Nice to meet you,” Kiku said, “and I like your phone case! It’s really cute!”

“Nice to meet you,” Aoi echoed, turning her phone over in her hands. She’d designed the case herself- a light blue backing with white wings painted bold across it, finished with a layer of gold glitter and sealed. People had commented on it before, but that wasn’t what Aoi had expected from a ghost that, by all accounts, should have died years before they’d ever had a chance to lay hands on a smartphone.

Apparently something showed on her expression, because Kiku giggled at her, not unkind.

“Surprised that I’m pretty current? Unlike Takeru over there,” Kiku said, lifting her voice to make sure the other ghost heard her from across the room, “I actually kept up with technology.”

“Listen, Kiku. Phones are confusing these days! They’re basically computers!”

“Smartphones aren’t terrifyingly knew technology, Takeru,” Kiku said, floating over towards Takeru with a wicked grin that spoke of long years of friendship. 

“Nope, no you don’t,” Takeru replied, then slid smoothly behind Yusaku, as if he would do something to protect him from Kiku’s oncoming wrath. Kiku rolled her eyes, but stopped halfway there and turned back to Aoi.  

“Here, those have pretty nice cameras now, right? Take a picture of me,” Kiku said with a smile. Aoi frowned, less at the suggestion and more at the logistics. Obligingly she lifted her phone, pointing the camera towards where Kiku floated, but nothing displayed on the screen. Still, Kiku was waiting expectantly- though why she wanted a photo, Aoi couldn’t possibly imagine- so she snapped one of the empty air. The second the shutter sound played, Kiku jumped forwards, practically leaning over Aoi to see. 

With that sort of enthusiasm, Aoi hated to be the bearer of bad news- but she had no other choice. Aoi turned her phone screen around, and Kiku frowned. “Oh. I really thought that would work. Maybe it’s only a ghost photo if we’re in the photo accidentally. Or if the people taking it are unaware we’re there.”

“Is there a reason you wanted it?” Aoi asked, and for a second something flashed in Kiku’s eyes, so fast that Aoi had no hope of catching it, her eyes glowing amber against the dark curtains. 

“No reason,” she chirped, friendly as she’d been before, “just wanted to see if it would work, is all. Yusaku refuses, so…”

Kiku trailed off, hiding something clear as day, but Aoi had no idea what to say, or if she should try and pry- what the etiquette of a conversation with a ghost was, Aoi had no hope of knowing. Instead she said, softly, “Well, maybe we can try again sometime.”

“Maybe,” Kiku said, then floated over to mime sitting atop a desk, motioning for Aoi to sit down in the chair pulled out beside it. “But for now, let’s talk! It’s rare that anyone actually can see us or succeeds in a ritual like this! It seems like you’re pretty special. So let’s get to know each other more, okay?”

This, remembered Aoi suddenly, was the author of the notes, the ones she kept pinned up above her desk like good luck charms. The one who’d written her compliment after compliment, knowing that she’d more than likely never receive a response. Kiku waved at her to sit down again, and Aoi complied. Yes, she thought, she’d really like to get to know Kiku a little more.

 

Aoi didn’t confront Kiku about the notes, because it seemed one thing to confront a stalker and another entirely to confront a ghost whose only way of communicating had been notes- that hadn’t been particularly disturbing in the first place, going just by their content. 

And the content itself... 

During a long lunch break, where Aoi sat at her desk with her lunch, gazing absently out the window instead of studying for her quiz next period, she caught sight of Kiku in the very edges of her vision, floating around a group of gossiping girls as if she was a part of their circle, too. 

No, they didn’t bring up the content of the notes. Aoi didn’t want to make things awkward and it was obvious that Kiku felt the same- she’d written them, obviously, with the certainty that she’d never be found. Unsigned love letters, like words of anonymous poets from centuries ago.

But still, Aoi thought, turning her head just slightly to better catch a glimpse of Kiku listening in on some passing gossip as she re-braided her hair, she wished that she could leave Kiku a few notes in return. 

Because Kiku didn’t seem  _ sad, _ exactly- if pressed, that wasn’t the word Aoi would use to describe her when she thought that no one was looking. But something about her was terribly melancholy. Unfulfilled? Aoi thought that was it. She couldn’t write notes, but perhaps there was something else that she could do.

“Hey,” Aoi said one day, looking over at Kiku, “what kind of things did you used to like to do?”

Kiku frowned; Aoi mirrored her expression, suddenly aware of how insensitive she must have sounded. But Kiku didn’t seem grievously offended, just a little unsure of how to answer. She tugged at one of her braids for a moment, looking somewhere beyond Aoi, then replied, “Well, I would have said  _ school, _ but I still learn plenty of things here. I always liked cheering more than watching sports, and I can still do that from the windows… Oh, actually! I was in the drama club, you know! I even got a big role in the last play I was in! I still haven’t forgotten any of my lines, you know. That’s how well I memorized them.”

Aoi hummed her interest, but Kiku didn’t seem to want to go on. Even a tilt of her head couldn’t convince Kiku to continue, and it was with an abrupt rush that made her heart stutter over a cold beat that she remembered- ten years ago, the drama club, the accident. 

_ Of course, _ thought Aoi,  _ no wonder she doesn’t want to talk about it. _

“Should we hold one, then?”

Kiku blinked at her. “What?”

“A play,” Aoi repeated, “or, I guess we probably can’t pull one off with just four people. But aren’t there some scenes we could do? I’m sure you have something you’d like to perform still, right?”

Kiku didn’t answer. For a long moment, Aoi worried that she’d said the exact wrong thing- that Kiku would disappear like the ghost she was, and suddenly she’d be gone, all because Aoi pushed too far in the wrong direction. 

“We don’t… have to do that, Aoi,” came Kiku’s careful reply. 

“Why not?” Aoi asked, trying not to be flippant- trying to convey to Kiku just how much she wanted to see her shine on stage the same way she’d once written to Aoi that she should. “You love it, don’t you? Even if it’s a little painful, I’ll be there for you. So-”

Kiku shook her head sharply enough that her braids flew out with the force of it. When she looked back up at Aoi, the look in her eyes was distressed, teeth biting her lip with such force that if she’d still had a body, Aoi was sure that it would be bleeding. “No! That’s- it’s not-”

The air in the room went chill. Kiku had always been so warm- Aoi took an instinctive step back as the hair on her arms rose, as her breath came out in a puff of white before her face. And in that moment Kiku’s eyes went wide, sucking in a breath she couldn’t have taken- lingering proof of humanity. She blinked a few times, shaking her head much more softly, and slowly did the room again begin to warm. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Aoi said, again taking a step forwards, reaching out hands that she realized just a second too late couldn’t comfort Kiku in the way she wanted to, “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have pressed. I knew, and I still…”

Kiku met her gaze softly. “No. That’s not it. You… you don’t know. No one knows, anymore. Just me and Takeru.”

Aoi tilted her head, silently asking if Kiku would tell her. For a little while Kiku hesitated, worrying her lip again, but with a huff it seemed she came to her decision.  

“It might…” Kiku said, then shook her head. “It is my fault. I dragged Takeru into coming to school and helping us all with that play. I told him that he could fill in the role opposite me and read off the script while the actual lead was helping out the principal. And so… If I just hadn’t done that, then at least Takeru would have been okay.”

“But the scaffolding still would have come down on your head,” Aoi said. It was clear that Kiku and Takeru were good friends. They must have been even back then. So she had to understand. You couldn’t lose someone that close to you and come out unscathed. Aoi knew that all too well. 

Kiku returned Aoi’s pleading look with something very soft, something terribly sad of her own. “I know. But I think that Takeru might have been okay. Even if they did still crush me.”

For a long while, Aoi couldn’t say anything. She could never know what Kiku must have felt, and she couldn’t do so much as reach out a hand to console her, to wrap around Kiku’s shoulders and pull her into the comforting hug she must have wanted, then. 

“If I find a good scene,” Aoi said, “A hopeful one. Then will you do it with me, just the two of us?”

Kiku let out a long breath. This was what she loved- what she had wanted to do, Aoi was sure of it. She still seemed a little hesitant, but finally she nodded. “Okay. If you can find something nice, then we can.”

“We’ll be good on stage,” Aoi said, “the two of us.”

“Yeah,” Kiku replied, still so terribly subdued, “we will be.”

 

She’d find Kiku a good scene. That was what Aoi had said, but in practice, she had no idea where to start. Nothing seemed quite right- sometimes she’d be halfway through a play and find a nice scene, only to realize how hollow the words run without their context. Other times she’d find a scene, but it always needed too many people, or were just two monologues pushed together- and she wanted to interact, to be on stage with Kiku  _ together. _ Not meaninglessly sharing the same space, but playing off each other, the way that Aoi knew that they could. She couldn’t pick anything petty, anything meaningless.

But, thought Aoi, it was surprisingly hard to find something that fit. With each week the semester wore on, and the end of the year drew closer, and still Aoi couldn’t find something that matched them in all the right ways. 

And on one day just like any other, walking past the locked auditorium doors, Aoi realized just what she’d have to find- what would suit Kiku perfectly. The only problem was, Aoi had no idea what it was. But Aoi was convinced that there had to be some sort of record still remaining, and so she went searching. The first few news articles made no mention of the play, and the one that finally did turned up no results. Even the school records were no help, but Aoi wouldn’t let herself stop there.

With her phone as a flashlight she plunged into the darkness of the abandoned backstage, creeping into the workshop down below, filled with rotting wooden carvings and collapsing metal structures whose purpose Aoi had no hope of guessing. She treaded careful through the dark, turning through piles of loose screws and pawing down to the bottom of ancient makeup boxes, searching for even a scrap of paper- anything that would lead her to what she was looking for.

She pushed aside loose planks of wood still stacked up against the wall, went meticulous through boxes of props that hadn’t been removed when the auditorium had been sealed off- and finally,  _ finally, _ did she pull a yellowed set of pages from one of their depths. Her heart skipped a beat, racing with anticipation as she turned her phone light on the front page, breath caught in her throat- and as Aoi read the title once, then twice, as she nearly dropped her phone in her haste to skim through the pages, sinking down to the ground with her back to the box to read one page, then the next, then the next, until finally she found the  _ one. _

_ Yes, _ thought Aoi, closing the last page of the script- she didn’t know how long she’d spent on the ground, but it was enough that her back and knees protested as she finally stood again, script in hand.  _ This is the scene. _

 

It took a while for Aoi to memorize her lines- she’d always been clever at thinking things up on the spot, on reasoning out what she had to say next, but there was a certain type of pressure here. She couldn’t make a mistake, because she knew that Kiku wouldn’t possibly. But the end of the year was approaching, and Aoi’s deadline drawing ever-closer. So, with just a week left of school, Aoi dragged Kiku down towards the auditorium.

“You didn’t tell me what the scene  _ is,”  _ Kiku protested, but followed Aoi down onto the stage all the same. She was tense, that much Aoi could tell, but she wasn’t yet cold. 

“It’s okay,” Aoi said, “you’ll know.”

They stood across from each other on the wide stage, and Kiku tugged nervously at one of her braids, glaze looking everywhere but the rafters, then nodded. “If you say so…”

“You will,” Aoi said, then took a deep breath and glanced out into the empty auditorium. In a perfect world, it would have been a full house, faces dim, drowned out by the stage lights beating down, a spotlight for them and them alone. As it was, Aoi thought, beginning to recite the lines she’d memorized so carefully, the dusty sunlight would simply have to do. 

Kiku’s eyes went wide the moment Aoi began to speak- but she returned, with a perfect tone, a practiced smile- “But wouldn’t it be a blessing if we could meet again?”

“Perhaps,” said Aoi, lifting her voice to match, “but such things are impossible, my love. The summer will take you and the winter will take me, and this river will become our parting place.”

Kiku laughed- practiced and quietly sad, but still  _ hers, _ beneath it all. “Not impossible. If I can live only in the summer sun, then the golden autumn will bring me back to you.”

“And the blooming spring, me to you.”

Another laugh, this time with much more joy. Kiku took a step forwards, and Aoi swore that she heard the floorboards creak beneath her weight. “So it’s not goodbye. It might only be twice a year, but eternity is a very long time.”

Aoi took a step fowards to meet her, eyes firmly on Kiku as she passed through a ray of sunlight that bounced off her pale skin. “You won’t tire of me?”

“Of you, love? Never.”

“You won’t?”

“Of course not. Do you know why?”

Aoi shook her head. The words came naturally as if they were her own. “No. Why?”

Kiku laughed, and this time it was all her- not a part of the script, not rehearsed. It simply was as it was, a joyful thing that rang through the empty space clear as a bell. “Because I love you!”

In a perfect world, there the curtain would have fallen as they’d rushed to embrace- but that wasn’t the sort of thing they could do in this empty auditorium, in their play for two. The echoes of Kiku’s final words faded slowly, though they still rang loud through Aoi’s head. If she had any say in the matter, she’d never forget them for the rest of her life- and perhaps a little after, too. Just like the notes, a treasure for her and her alone. 

“Thank you,” Kiku said after silence had settled again, and her eyes welled up with a strange iridescence that took Aoi a moment to register as tears. “Thank you, Aoi. Really.”

She turned out towards the empty auditorium, full of dust floating lazily through the trailing sunlight. “I really did want to do this, in the end. I never got to say those lines. Not when it mattered. So thank you. I don’t know if anyone else would have ever realized.”

Kiku spoke with such a wistful tone, Aoi could only wonder how many times Kiku had tried.  _ How lonely. _

“I’m sorry you died,” Aoi said, which seemed both terribly stupid a sentiment to tell a ghost that had been lingering a decade after her death and the most honest thing she could. 

“It’s not all bad,” Kiku said, smiling down at Aoi with an expression so lively and bright, Aoi wondered how she’d ever doubted that Kiku was real. “After all. If we hadn’t stuck around, then I would’ve never got the chance to meet you!”

“I’m sorry you had to die to meet me,” Aoi said again, and Kiku rolled her eyes fondly. 

“Enough of all this dark stuff. Let’s play a game,” Kiku said, smiling charming and wide. Like that, Aoi couldn’t resist smiling back at her. 

“Close your eyes,” Kiku said, miming her fingers over Aoi’s eyelids, as if to shut them herself. Aoi complied, tilting her head up to accommodate the floating Kiku- and she could sense as Kiku moved forwards, where she brushed gentle fingertips over Aoi’s cheek before leaning forwards to meet her lips.

The places where their spirits brushed glowed with a sweet warmth, and Aoi thought that whoever said that sudden chills were the sign of a ghost had obviously never met one. Not properly. Not like this.

“Thank you, Aoi,” said Kiku after a moment, the warmth of her fading, “for everything.”

“Kiku?” she called, but knew that she’d only be met with emptiness- so Aoi kept her eyes closed just a little while longer, holding on to that fading sensation of warmth. When she opened her eyes, then it would all be over- so then she’d cling for as long as she could.

Zaizen Aoi never believed in ghosts. And now, a quiet part of her wished that she never did- that she’d always left the mystery of the strange notes in her desk as a mystery, as an admirer with no name.

But no, Aoi thought as she opened her eyes to the empty auditorium- that wasn’t what she wished for. What she wished for wasn’t a tragedy, not like the one Kiku had died in. What she wanted now was a miracle. A happy ending. If she’d learned to believe in ghosts, thought Aoi, stepping down careful from the stage, then she could learn to believe in miracles, too.

 

(She’d said she could learn to believe in miracles, Aoi thought, trudging to school the next morning, heavy with the realization that no longer would she find notes tucked into her desk, and no longer would Kiku be there to greet her.  _ But.  _

She wasn’t selfish enough to insist that Kiku stay with her, to keep her constant around reminders of what she couldn’t have,  _ but- _

Aoi blinked. Before her a girl turned the gate. She had such a familiar silhouette, dressed sharply in black blazer and skirt that didn’t quite seem to suit her-

Aoi took one step, then another, then another, then sped around the corner, ducking between two students with a muttered apology. They were just an afterthought, forgotten the moment she caught sight of the girl with braids headed through the gates. 

It couldn’t be, Aoi thought. She wasn’t any expert on spirits or ghosts or the rules of miracles, but it  _ couldn’t be. _ Still Aoi reached out her hand, landing tentative on the girl’s shoulder to stop her in her tracks- “Kiku?”

And looking back at her, a smile reflected in brown eyes that had never quite seemed so bright. “Good morning, Aoi.”)


	2. Yusaku & Takeru

For as long as he could remember, Fujiki Yusaku had been able to see things. Things that lived on the border of this world and the next, slipping quietly alongside the world they couldn’t touch. Mostly youkai, the occasional old god slipping down the street, surrounded by entourage and quite enraged on the occasions Yusaku didn’t have tribute for them. 

They’d always been there, slipping through the edges of his vision and trying to latch onto one of the few people that could see them before Yusaku shoved them off. He couldn’t escape them- he’d simply been born with the ability to see them, and he’d have to endure. No matter how much of an absolute pain it was.

So it was only fitting, Yusaku supposed, that the very first step he took onto the campus was one where he walked straight through a ghost. Yusaku grimaced. He hadn’t seen the ghost from outside the grounds- if he had, he would have stayed well out of their way. He always hated the brief, light-headed dispersion he always felt when passing through another soul. 

“Whoa! That was close!”

Yusaku ignored the voice, pressing on with ducked head, shaking it slightly to rid himself of the last pieces of a soul that wasn’t his. 

“Takeru!” came a second voice, slightly faint, thinner than one he heard from the press of people around him. “I told you not to stand at the gates like that! What if someone’s carrying a protection charm?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” Returned the first voice, belonging presumably to the spirit Yusaku had the displeasure of walking through. “We’re strong enough that nothing some student would have could hurt us.”

Yusaku blinked at those boasting words- that was never a good sign. He glanced back over his shoulder. A boy wearing an old gakuran and a girl in a sailor uniform hovered just off the ground- the girl more so than the boy, using the leverage floating gave her to give her scolding meaning. Not only was there one ghost haunting this place, apparently there were at least two.  _ Fantastic. _

He turned back, gaze set firmly on the path before him, but apparently he’d lingered just a second too long.

“Hey, did he just… turn back to look at me?” said the ghost of the boy. 

Yusaku took extra care not to look as if he’d heard. Even a normal person tended to look over their shoulder if they’d stepped through a ghost. If he had any luck, the ghosts would forget about this quickly. The girl hummed, and he could feel their gazes on his back all the way until he stepped inside the building. Yusaku got a sinking feeling- but he’d have at least a little hope. He’d gotten quite skilled at ignoring ghosts, over the past sixteen years. He could do it again- he’d  _ have _ to do it again.

 

They didn’t forget, of course. That would have been too convenient.

“Hey,” said the ghost in the gakuran, pretending to sit on the very edge of the chair in the row before Yusaku and waving a hand in front of his face. “Hey, you can see me. You can definitely see me, can’t you?”

Yusaku tried his hardest to stare straight through him, which was rather difficult with the waving hand half a foot from his face and the intense set of the ghost’s eyes, even behind the frames of green glasses. Still, he’d had plenty of practice over the years. 

If a ghost was annoying when they thought you  _ couldn’t _ see them, then Yusaku had long since learned that they were a thousand times worse when they found out you were one of the few who could. Like this, there was still a chance that the ghosts would give up and find someone else to haunt. Someone oblivious, hopefully. 

“Hey,  _ heeey. _ What’s your name?”

“Fujiki Yusaku.”

“Here,” Yusaku called to the front of the classroom, resenting that timing as he looked straight at the teacher in the front of the room, somewhere through the boy’s shoulder.

The ghost leaned forwards. “Fujiki Yusaku, huh? That’s an old-sounding name. I’m not any better though. I’m  _ Homura Takeru. _ Takeru, like the prince from the old stories.”

Yusaku didn’t make any attempt at acknowledging Takeru, though it was nice to have a name to attach to the ghost he was intent on ignoring for the next however many years this ghost happened to hang around. Instead he scribbled down the date in his notebook- not that he really intended on taking notes, but anything was a good distraction. And a good distraction it continued to be. Yusaku thought, somewhat amused on the days he didn’t simply sleep, that he’d never studied so hard in his life.

The school year went better than most of the ones before, just based on the first few weeks. He rumors that floated about him were mostly brushed off in favor of ghost hunts and jokes about summonings and wild imaginings of the mundane things that haunted Yusaku’s everyday life. If a few people tried to spread a rumor about the kid they knew in middle school, it was crushed as quickly as they came. Even the ghosts began to lose interest in him, bugging him a few days when the rumors were at their peak but eventually backing off as he stubbornly ignored them. He thought, with a breath of relief as he left the school grounds and their realm of influence, that it seemed they’d given up after all.

 

Or so he’d thought. 

The incident happened one day during lunch, Yusaku munching nonchalantly on bread he’d bought from the school store and Shima sitting beside him working his way through what his mother had packed him. They were working together on their math homework, Yusaku fixing the problems that Shima was having trouble with. Apparently he’d missed some school at the end of last year; Yusaku had only heard half of the conversation at the time he’d explained. But given how much Shima liked to talk, Yusaku assumed he’d hear it again before the semester was out.

“Hey, so,” said Shima after a while, setting down his pencil to lean back and stretch, “you know about the ghosts?”

“Sure,” Yusaku said, and promptly began to filter out most everything that came out of Shima’s mouth. He really never understood why people had such a fascination with the world of spirits and the things they couldn’t see. If they knew what trouble it was, then he doubted most of them would bother to care. He finished off one problem and moved to the next; Shima still muttered on and on about the ghosts and whatever one of his other friends that had supposedly attempted a summoning had discovered.

“So, we’re pretty sure that the guy’s name is Kakeru, right? And-“

“Takeru,” Yusaku corrected, scribbling down the answers to their math homework, still lacking any interest in the conversation.

“Huh?” Shima said, not expecting Yusaku to have interrupted. Yusaku’s gaze shot up, and he glanced careful around the room, trying not to give away the fact that  _ that  _ was what he was doing. With any luck, the ghosts were off-

Floating over from the corner of the room was Takeru. Smiling. Waving his arms excitedly, all but yelling at Yusaku. “You  _ can  _ see me!”

Yusaku ignored him. He really wasn’t about to start talking to thin air around other people. His elementary and middle school classmates had thought him strange enough for that already. 

“Oh,” Takeru said, expression falling a moment before perking right back up into that cheery grin he’d turned on Yusaku every time before, “maybe you can’t see me? You can just hear me?”

Yusaku said absolutely nothing and waved Shima on to continue with a brief- “Takeru. That’s one of the students who died ten years ago, isn’t it?”

Shima snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it! He must’ve heard wrong. So, this Takeru showed up, and-“

On the other side of his desk, Takeru floated over to mike sitting beside Yusaku and grinned devious. “Oh,” he said, “you looked for me. I  _ saw you _ look for me. And I’m not leaving until you acknowledge me, Yusaku.”

Yusaku let out a thin little breath, not loud enough to draw Shima’s attention with a sigh.  _ This, _ he thought, was going to be a long day. 

After the final bell Yusaku wove his way up to the roof of the school, where the students should have been thin this time of day. He felt Takeru following him- the aura he was radiating was impossible to ignore. In his sixth sense it was utterly blinding, obscuring the entirety of the hall behind them. 

Halfway towards the roof Yusaku changed his mind and ducked into an empty classroom, instead. Takeru would be nothing but a beacon for spirits and gods like this, and the last thing Yusaku wanted today was to have to deal with any sort of attack. Malicious creatures weren’t common in this area but they weren’t unheard of- either way they were a problem Yusaku had no intention of dealing with today.

“So,” Yusaku said, shutting the door behind him and leaving Takeru to phase through. He made his way towards the windows; for some reason talking to oneself like a distant observer of something down below seemed much more like harmless, contemplative chatter than someone talking to themselves in the middle of an empty room did. Takeru followed him, settling down on the windowsill.

“You can see me,” Takeru said, beaming in every sense of the word.

“Yes,” replied Yusaku flatly. He didn’t think there was a point in wasting time on things they’d already established.

“Why did you ignore me for so long then?” Takeru asked, and at least he didn’t sound hurt. The last thing he needed was for something as simple as that to unbalance Takeru enough to turn vengeful- though given that he seemed to have a friend around, the chances of that were fairly low. 

Yusaku just shrugged. “I already have enough to deal with.”

“Then I’ll help you!”

“Please don’t.”

But it was no use- whatever Yusaku tried to say, none of it seemed to stick to Takeru, seemingly determined to sweet-talk his way into Yusaku’s company. And Yusaku, for lack of power to exorcise spirits, was forced to let him. 

 

But really, Yusaku found, Takeru wasn’t so bad as far as ghosts went. He was hardly erratic, and he was friendly- a pleasant enough person to be around, even though he had a nasty habit of forgetting that Yusaku couldn’t actually acknowledge him when other people were around. 

But even that he began to remember eventually, and their days began to settle into a sort of routine of Takeru and Kiku greeting him at the gates, then occasionally popping in during the day to give him the answers to lessons- not to say that Takeru’s were always  _ right. _

After class Yusaku usually found himself in an empty classroom somewhere, begged by Takeru and his earnest looks to stay. He wasn’t in any clubs, and going home meant dealing with all the spirits he’d doubtless find on the way- so Yusaku stayed for a while, and told himself that this was easier.

“So, uh, how do you use that, exactly?” Takeru asked, trying to poke at his tablet screen and accomplishing nothing but making the display fuzz up where his fingers brushed through.

“Don’t break it,” Yusaku said, tugging his tablet back out of Takeru’s reach. He’d seen plenty of spirits and ghosts inadvertently short-circuit someone’s property. On one too many incidences, that person had been  _ him. _

“I’m not going to break it,” Takeru replied, in the very tone of voice that someone oft used before doing something ill-advised and breaking something. 

Yusaku frowned, and angled the tablet back towards Takeru. “Fine. Then help me with this homework. I fell asleep in class.”

Luckily, Takeru didn’t seem to have any sort of lecture for him at that. The minor god who’d decided to take up  _ minor _ residence in his bedroom, however, tended to tease him about it. How he knew what Yusaku got up to at school in the first place, he didn’t know. For that matter, he hardly wanted to- but if he had to take a guess, assuming the form of a disembodied eyeball half the time probably had something to do with it. 

Back beside him, Takeru crossed his arms and hummed as he read over the text, then promptly looked back over at Yusaku and shrugged. “Nope, no idea. Good luck?”

Yusaku sighed and turned his tablet back towards himself. No, of course not. A spirit actually doing something helpful for him for once in his life would be far too much to ask. 

“Takeru, really?” Kiku said, rolling her eyes and leaping over to them in a few bounds, unnecessary but peppy and quite in-character. “We’ve spent ten years in school. What do you mean you can’t help him?”

“I can’t do that kind of math in my head,” Takeru protested, waving a hand down at the complex set of equations scrawled across Yusaku’s notebook. Kiku looked down at it, frowned, then held out her hand towards Yusaku. “I can do it. Pencil, please.”

“You can-“

Kiku cut him off with a nod. “Oh, yep! Just small objects, though. I mostly use it to write people notes and things.”

“Yeah,” Takeru cut in, “like lo-“

“Motivational notes!” Kiku said, and waved her hand again for Yusaku’s pencil. He handed it over carefully, but it seemed he didn’t have to worry- when it landed in Kiku’s palm she spun it around easy as a living human would, then floated down to scribble across Yusaku’s notebook. She obviously had practice with it; most other spirits had a hard time finding the right pressure to make their writing smooth as it had been when they were alive.

As she worked her way towards the answer, Yusaku took a moment to hope that she wasn’t causing trouble for any of the other students. Given he was fairly sure he knew exactly what Takeru was about to say, he thought that the probability of that was low. Yusaku sighed and revised his hopes- if they were causing trouble, then he hoped at least that he wouldn’t have to get involved. 

(He did, of course, because karma had never once done him right.)

 

The months slipped by, and Yusaku allowed himself to be carried along with them- for all his worries, the spirits here weren’t as clingy or unstable as he’d feared, and his life was able to go along as normally as his life could. Takeru and Kiku asked often for stories about the outside world, and Yusaku indulged when he could- though Aoi was far more informed than he considered himself to be, stuck seeing the world through the haze of another. By unspoken agreement, Aoi and Yusaku never asked the same of them. 

That didn’t, however, prevent them from telling their stories. 

“You know,” Takeru said, “I’m pretty glad we weren’t born at the same time. I mean, that I get to meet you like this.”

Yusaku glanced up, trying to read the complicated emotions flashing across Takeru’s face- terribly transparent, and making no attempt to hide it. Still, for Yusaku it was difficult. He was already bad enough at reading his fellow humans, to say nothing of his encounters with spirits. Ghosts could regret any number of things and he’d never have hope of knowing. 

But most ghosts he’d met over the years, if they had regrets, were for things that they’d wanted to do if they were alive. Not whatever strange thing Takeru has just confessed to him now.

“Why?” It was the only thing he could say. 

Takeru didn’t seem to want to answer, but he finally said- “We probably wouldn’t have gotten along.”

“Why?” Yusaku asked again, and Takeru shot him a long-suffering look. Obviously he hadn’t wanted to elaborate, but if something was bothering Takeru, it was best for him to talk about it now. He’d lived as a ghost for a decade and still seemed stable enough, but Yusaku knew just how easily a peaceful spirit could crumble. He didn’t want to see Takeru reduced to that- not now, not ever.

“I wasn’t exactly who I am now. The only reason I ever went to school was because it made Kiku worry about me less. I had some stuff happen and I guess it took dying for me to get over it,” Takeru said all in a rush, as if he’d realized he’d started a sentence he shouldn’t finish but had no choice to.

“We would’ve gotten along,” Yusaku said, definitively. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that ghosts tended to keep their personalities intact when they lingered. Takeru couldn’t have been so radically different than the person than he tried to be now.

“You’re sure, huh?” Takeru said, looking down into the courtyard below a moment before finishing, “Thanks, Yusaku. Seriously.”

To that, Yusaku could only shrug. He couldn’t say one way or another- to look into the past and all potential futures and timelines wasn’t an ability that he possessed. But he couldn’t think of any reason he  _ wouldn’t _ get along with Takeru. 

 

Well, he might have been able to think of  _ one. _

Takeru liked to mess with Yusaku’s belongings. He wasn’t actually any good at it, given he wasn’t particularly skilled at manifesting anything resembling fine motor control, but he still liked to do it, much to Yusaku’s irritation. He was sure Takeru was going to end up frying his phone with the ways he insisted on trying to fiddle with its display all the time. 

They were alone in a classroom after school, Kiku and Aoi nowhere to be seen, and, as Yusaku’s phone clattered to the floor as Takeru lost his grip on it, Yusaku finally snapped at him- “Why do you keep doing this? If you want something, I’ll do it for you.”

“I miss touching things,” Takeru admitted, in a way he was probably trying to pass off as casual and failing rather spectacularly at. It was uncharacteristically melancholy, and the second he said it he tried to take it back. “I mean, this is a lot more convenient, actually. I mean, can you imagine having to deal with things like walls, and doors? I don’t miss stairs. Those were always a pain. Oh, and-”

“Takeru.” 

Just his name stopped Takeru’s rambling in its tracks. He snapped his mouth shut and looked over at Yusaku, pushing back his bangs before smoothing them back out again, though in practice all it did was make them a ruffled mess.

Yusaku sighed. He didn’t do this often- it always left him tired and kind of disoriented, and it was rarely worth it, anyway. But it wasn’t as if he had plans, and Takeru clearly needed it.

“Stay still,” Yusaku said, and reached out his hand. Takeru, tense, stayed perhaps too still. It was inhuman. For anyone else it might have been inadvertently unnerving, but Yusaku was used to it.

Yusaku narrowed his eyes, concentrating whatever it was inherent in his bones that had left him with this ability- and brushed Takeru’s bangs back into place, fingertips brushing warm where they met Takeru’s skin. But he only managed to move a few errant strands back in place before Takeru was leaping backwards, blinking at Yusaku with wide eyes and waving an accusing finger at him. “You just touched me!”

“Yes,” said Yusaku, flatly.

“You can do that?”

“Obviously.” 

Takeru just stared at him a little longer, brushing ineffectively at his bangs that Yusaku had just started to smooth down. Yusaku put on a stern look, accented by how tired he knew this was going to leave him with every second they wasted.

“Come here and let me fix your hair,” Yusaku said, and Takeru gave a sheepish chuckle before returning to sit on the desk pushed up next to Yusaku’s. Without wasting time, Yusaku leaned forwards and patted his bangs back into place, fixing the way they stayed up at ridiculous angles and wondering all the while if this was some side effect of being a ghost or if Takeru’s hair had always been such a ridiculous thing. 

“Thanks,” Takeru said as Yusaku pulled his fingers away, letting himself relax and letting out a breath he hardly realized he’d been holding.

“Anytime,” he replied, and realized, just a faint little thing, that he wouldn’t particularly mind if Takeru took him up on the offer.

 

The time passed far too quickly. In the background Aoi schemed and in the foreground Takeru continued to barge his way into Yusaku’s life, and slowly did the school year begin to draw to a close. It was uneventful, and Yusaku found himself wondering if there wasn’t something he could do at school- under Takeru and Kiku’s jurisdiction it was free of the ill-intentioned things that liked to try and latch onto him, and it was a nice change of scenery, at least, from the annoyances of the minor god in his bedroom. 

And then one day, a week before school was set to let out for the year, the barrier began to fade from around the school. It was sudden and irreversible, a warm pulse of a soul like a heartbeat vanished in a fading warmth and silver flash. Yusaku felt it as it disappeared, straightening up in his desk and gaze flashing immediately towards Takeru. But Takeru wasn’t watching him- instead his gaze was fixed firmly on the wall, towards the auditorium where he’d died a decade ago. As Yusaku watched he began to falter at the edges, fading and breaking, a spirit struggling to hold together their sense of self.

“Takeru,” Yusaku said, not quite sharply but hard enough to pull Takeru’s attention straight back to him.

Takeru met his gaze, mined taking a deep breath, and slowly began to pull himself together, dragging the wisps of him back into their familiar silhouette- but the look in his eyes was uncharacteristically upset. “Time to go, I think.”

“Why don’t you latch onto me?” Yusaku suggested- it was the only thing he could think of. Time was already drawing short, and Yusaku could feel it in the disappearing energy of the barrier, in the void where there had once been a spirit, in the faltering rhythm of Takeru himself.

But Takeru shook his head. He grinned, but it wasn’t quite as bright as usual. “Nah. Sorry, Yusaku. But I’d be a pretty bad best friend if I ditched Kiku now, right? I mean, she put up with me for this long. I’m not leaving now just because we’re extra dead.”

Yusaku couldn’t say anything to that, not when it was clear that Kiku’s presence had been one of the few things keeping Takeru together. Even now he struggled to maintain his form. “But-”

“Besides,” Takeru interrupted, “we’ll meet again in the next life. I finally got to make another friend. I’m not going to give up on you now.”

Yusaku rolled his eyes. “I’m not spending time with a baby.”

Takeru made a face at the very thought. “Okay, okay, I didn’t think that through very well. The next,  _ next  _ life?”

Yusaku just shook his head. “Sure.”

And, like a child, Takeru held out his pinky finger. “Let’s make it a promise. We won’t remember, but maybe we’ll get lucky enough to find each other anyway.”

Yusaku reached out to take it, and the place where their skin met burned warm as a real touch. If he didn’t know any better, then Yusaku would have said that the person standing before him was alive- and then, before Yusaku could do so much as blink, Takeru was gone, vanished in a wave of heat like a flame.

And Yusaku, surely just like Aoi somewhere else down in the school, was alone.

 

Yusaku didn’t quite crash into his bedroom, but certainly he moved with more force than strictly necessary as he closed the door behind him. 

“Something happen?” Asked the minor god floating around his bed, who’d apparently gathered up enough energy to appear as something other than a disembodied eye- not that some kind of harmless little mascot character was any better for his credibility.

“Nothing,” Yusaku said, and thought it the sudden realization that whatever they’d had was only just getting started when it had been met with such a sudden end. The thought just worsened his mood from bad to foul. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Have… fun?” Replied Ai, and Yusaku proceeded to ignore him as he shrugged off his jacket and fell into bed. If he was asleep, the strange unease eating at him couldn’t bother him. When he woke up, he’d be back to normal, uncaring whether spirits lingered or passed or unravelled entirely. 

He wouldn’t care.

(Or so he told himself.)

 

The next morning, Yusaku opened his eyes. Before him was his own reflection. Yusaku blinked. The figure before him pulled back, and Yusaku processed the eyes behind the glasses- “Takeru?”

“Yep.”

Yusaku blinked a few more times, but still Takeru remained as Yusaku knew him- slightly transparent if he looked hard enough, floating in the air above his bed and smiling down at him with an expression that Yusaku hadn’t realized he would miss until it had vanished. “How are you here?”

It shouldn’t have been possible. Yusaku had  _ felt _ him leave. Yusaku had sensed him move on to whatever remained before the next life, before he’d torn himself to pieces. And yet Takeru was here again- outside the boundaries of his territory, even, smiling down at Yusaku like he’d just been told the secret of life itself. 

“Basically,” Takeru said, “I got to make a deal. Kiku gets to come back now, like she was right before everything went down. And in exchange, I get stuck with a human. Pretty good, right?”

Yusaku didn’t point out that it sounded more like a gift than a deal- not when in the end, it benefitted him just as much as it had Takeru and Kiku.

He just let out a long breath and replied, “Yeah. Pretty good.”

It wasn’t the end. Whatever they’d started to build, over this one year, it was only getting started- and for the first time, Yusaku thought that having someone latched on to him might not be so bad, after all.

“And that’s for  _ all  _ your lives, by the way,” Takeru added, and Yusaku just groaned and pushed himself out of bed. 

Nevermind, he thought- it might still be terrible after all.

(But if he’d have to be stuck with  _ anyone _ for the rest of eternity, he thought just a moment later, glancing over at Takeru with half a grin across his lips- there probably wasn’t anyone better.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is so rushed ;; I'll try and make up for it some day ;;


End file.
